Teachers using video within learning teams

Teachers using video within learning teams

Whilst video is a successful tool for self-reflecting on your teaching, it can also prove useful within a learning team. Video Learning Teams (VLTs) are proven to be valuable for at least four reasons:

1. Teachers can learn a great deal by watching themselves teach or coach more than once.

2. VLTs provide powerful follow-ups to professional learning because members commit to implementing a new technique or idea and can analyse its effectiveness in different settings.

3. During VLT discussions, teachers can learn powerful and often subtle teaching techniques that they can then implement themselves.

4. When teachers come together in teams they form a bond, simply because the structure of a VLT compels them to be vulnerable in front of their peers and engage in constructive and supportive conversations.

In Focus on Teaching, Jim Knight suggests three successful strategies you can use VLTs for:

1. To help coaches improve their coaching

Record a coach in action then review the video within a team, basing discussions around these four questions:

• What worked?

• What didn't work?

• What accounts for the difference?

• What should be done differently next time?

Considering these will help the team to analyse how the coaching is working, which will then enable them to better clarify goal setting, exploratory conversations and other coaching skills.

2. To introduce teachers to new practices

Knight suggests that prior to a learning team meeting, one teacher should volunteer to prepare and share a video of their practice. After sharing, the volunteer should ask for feedback and comments from the rest of the team.

Through feedback, the teacher learns suggestions for how to improve their practice from their peers, whilst the rest of the group can also learn from what the teacher does well in the video.

3. To help teachers improve their teaching

When watching a lesson recording, encourage members to take notes focusing on these four areas:

• The learning activity in the classroom.

• What the teacher is doing.

• What the students are doing.

• What feedback they want to present to the rest of the learning team.

The person whose lesson has been watched can then start the discussion about their teaching and also ask other team members for their comments on what they have seen.

What are your experiences of teachers using video? We'd love to hear from you in the comments section below.